Sexy Gadgets, Cool Gadgets and Concept Gadgets

Of late there wasn’t much to differentiate HTC’s Android smartphones. Most of them looked similar with the only difference being their different display sizes.

Surprisingly, there is something charming about the latest entrant, the Rhyme. A small accessory named ‘Charm’ included in the box is sure to become a hit with the girls. This cube-shaped white accessory is designed to notify incoming and missed call and even SMS. It plugs into the phone’s 3.5mm jack and lights up when any of these actions takes place. So when the phone is in the handbag, the Charm can hang out and alert it owner.

But it has its share of letdowns. With just one 3.5mm jack on the phone, you have to decide whether you want to listen to music or let Charm do its job. Read the rest of this entry »

While the mobile market is dominated by iPhones and the many Android-powered handsets out there, there is still a sizeable group of consumers sticking to QWERTY messenger phones. And while Nokia hasn’t seen very good luck recently, devices like the E6 serve to reinforce that the Finnish company can still make some pretty decent QWERTY-enabled devices. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are wondering why the E7 looks so familiar, you have the N8 to thank. Outwardly, the former is basically a larger version of the latter, but with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Similarly, the phone sports a somber and minimalist design with well-defined curves and contours that will fit right in with the business-minded crowd. The E7 is remarkably slim considering that it comes with a full QWERTY keyboard, though feels distinctly heavier at 176g. Read the rest of this entry »

Design-wise, the Motorola Atrix spots a particularly uninspired black-themed design and isn’t likely to stand out amidst its flashier counterparts dressed in aluminum. The phone is predominantly plastic, which explains its relatively lightweight (and rather slippery) I35g body. Otherwise, the control layout on the ATRIX is fairly run-of-the-mill aside from the power/lock button, which we found to be a little awkwardly positioned. If not for the fact that it doubles up as a fingerprint scanner, we would have dismissed it as a poor choice of location – having been positioned on a sloped edge on the Atrix’s body, it makes for rather inconvenient pressing.

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The Samsung Galaxy S II returns as the Korean smartphone-maker’s high-end flagship device, replacing a predecessor that’s slightly over a year old. The latter first garnered attention for its patented Super AMOLED screen, later on replaced by a Super AMOLED Plus display on the Galaxy S II. That’s not all the new high-end Android 2.3 smartphone has to offer though; this beastly droid comes with an impressive 1.2GHz dual-core processor and an 8-megapixel camera, but more on that later.

The Galaxy S ll bears close resemblance to its predecessor in terms of design, this time ditching the chrome bezel in favor of plastic, with ports and buttons shifted around. The ultra-slim smartphone sports an extremely minimalist design that calls attention to its huge 4.27-inch Super AMOLED Plus screen. There’s still quite a great deal of plastic all around, but this keeps the weight to a minimum at H6g. Read the rest of this entry »

For the most part, 3D capabilities on smartphones sound like a gimmick, though HTC would disagree with their new Evo 3D smartphone. With most modern smartphones today focusing on a thinner and lighter profile, the Evo 3D presents a solid heft with a I70g weight and 12.05mm profile; if you like your smartphones solid and chunky, the Evo 3D aims to please. Read the rest of this entry »

The Sony Ericsson Xperia arc comes as one of the latest additions to an increasingly crowded Android space, but with a fairly unique preposition: A huge 4.2-inch Reality Display touchscreen with Sony’s Mobile BRAVIA Engine technology. Is the arc as good as it promises to be?

The first thing that strikes you about the arc is how thin it is, at just 8.7mm thick it is almost half the thickness of most phones available today. If you look carefully at the back of the phone, you will also notice that the arc stands out from the others because of its curved profile. Read the rest of this entry »

Pretty much reusing the previously-launched N9′s design, the Windows Phone 7.5-powered Lumia 800 features the same slim polycarbonate unibody chassis. The side profile is noticeably rounded to fit comfortably within our hands. This also makes it easier to handle the edge-to-edge 3.7-inch AMOLED ClearBlack curved display. Two minor niggles we found with the design of the Lumia 800 are the sharp corners up top (which does affect handling), as well as the plastic cover over the microUSB port, which seems as though it could break easily. The Lumia 800 utilizes three capacitive touch-enabled soft buttons for primary navigation, which is a distinct trait of Windows Phone 7 devices.

Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Arc was one stylish feature-packed phone. The Xperia Arc S is its beautiful successor. But will it manage to hold its own against the excellent devices in town? The design of the original Arc was well appreciated by the market and Sony Ericsson was prudent enough to retain the same curves and lines. The metal bezel running around the corners has controls and jack, making it stand out against a body colour like black. The 4.2-inch capacitive display in a sleek casing was comfortable to use and to slide into the pocket. Read the rest of this entry »

The Evo 3D is a gorgeous phone. Like its Evo 4G sibling, it’s black with blood-red detailing. It feels solid but not bulky, with a nice, textured rubber backing and a slim shape that feels great to hold.

Naturally, two of its most important features are its 3D display and 3D image capture. The phone uses parallax barriers to show 3D images and video, with no need for clunky 3D glasses. The 4.3-inch qHD (Quarter High Definition) 960-by-540-pixel screen looks terrific in 2D—and pretty good in 3D. (The 3D images aren’t flying in your face; you seem to peer into the phone as if into a diorama.) Read the rest of this entry »

Though the iPhone 4S might not be the most exciting iPhone to appear, an improved camera, a faster processor, and the addition of the Siri personal assistant make it a powerful smartphone. If you are upgrading from a 3G or a 3GS, you FU see a huge difference. But if you have an iPhone 4, you may want to wait for the next upgrade. The phone’s iOS still has a few irksome shortcomings, and I wasn’t thrilled by the call quality; otherwise, the iPhone 4S impresses. Read the rest of this entry »

HTC has a reputation for unusual monikers – previous handsets include the WildFire, Incredible and ChaCha. However, the Titan is actually a suitable name for this gargantuan smartphone, leaving little to the imagination.

The firm, rounded body is 12mm thick, which gives it more bulk than some laptops we’ve seen, and the 160g weight is right at the top end for modern smartphones.

If you enjoy surfing the web or watching movies on your phone, you’ll probably tolerate the bulky size for the crisp and colorful 4.7-inch screen.

It isn’t quite as mesmerizing as the Samsung Galaxy S2’s Super-AMOLED display, but images look realistic and the extra space is perfect for browsing. Read the rest of this entry »

The Motorola Fire has a 2.8-inch capacitive display on which you can navigate with your fingers, as well as a physical QWERTY keypad on which you can type. It may have a regular 600 MHz processor and 256 MB RAM, but it scores over some of the other Androids since it sports the latest version of the operating system, Android v2.3. Capable of handling emails, web browsing, applications and multimedia with ease, it comes with a 3.15 MP camera and ability to record 480P videos at 24 frames per second. Predictive text input, document viewer, digital compass, etc., are other usual options. This phone packs in a 1420 mAh battery.

After the success of the Optimus One, LG has come up with two new Androids phones, of which the Optimus Net is the better one. Even though the high-end Optimus devices ran on the old Android v2.2, the Net proudly runs on Gingerbread. Moving ahead from a 600 MHz processor, this one has an 800 MHz processor and 512 MB RAM. These make this phone significantly better than the ones available in the market in this price bracket. Also, the device looks stylish with its curved edges, this designing extending to below the display near the physical keys as well. Multimedia features include a 3.15 MP camera, FM radio, YouTube, and Google Talk.

And, just like on the Samsung, you get a sidebar of icons that take you to the essential features, which makes the display crowded. The slow processor becomes evident when you try to Tire these apps up: there’s a noticeable delay before they get started.

At least the screen is responsive to finger swipes, and Orange makes up for a lack of multi-touch with its Gestures app. This lets you launch apps by drawing shapes on the screen: a circle brings up the web browser, a heart fires up the camera and so on. You can assign your own shapes, and it’s easy and fun to use, it’s a pity the keyboard doesn’t work so well: it feels cheap and is difficult to type accurately on. Read the rest of this entry »

“Is it a phone? It’s definitely a new phone from BlackBerry. But where is the keypad?” were the first few words that a friend blurted when we unpacked the BlackBerry Visor Mount Bluetooth Speakerphone – VM-605.

The first look reminded us of the movie Alien vs Predator due to its flawless gloss finish. But how would something the size of a handset look when mounted on a car’s sun visor? Not bad we say.

The front panel acts as call control and the speaker grill is placed below the control clubbed with a line of LED indicators above the call button. It can be used for phone calls and for playing music as it supports A2DR the voice clarity over the speakerphone was excellent at both the ends. It has an FM transmitter, music playback and GPS navigation directions over the car’s audio system. Read the rest of this entry »

THE HTC SENSATION 4G ($200 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile) pretty much has it all: a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the latest version of Android (Gingerbread), and 4G speeds on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network. When I first played with the Sensation 4G, I was blown away by its beautiful hardware, gorgeous display, and slick user interface. But I did run into troubling issues with its antenna. In some cases, how I held the phone seemed to affect its data-streaming speeds. Read the rest of this entry »

Facing criticism for its outdated operating system in comparison to the Apple iOS, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Phone, Nokia finally joined hands with Microsoft, but before completely ditching its favored OS, it isn’t unmindful of Symbian’s loyal users. So one more blow. The new Symbian update, named Anna, brings much-awaited changes. New better-looking circular icons, improved web browser and an onscreen QWERTY keypad in portrait mode along with a few tweaks in downloading apps from Ovi Store are the long overdue enhancements. And to reap the benefits of the upgrade, the X7 is Nokia’s first full touch smartphone. Read the rest of this entry »

Awesome yet baffling, breathtaking yet frustrating, the HTC EVO 3D is a super-cool, super-powerful phone that requires some patience. As the first glasses-free 3D phone in the United States, the EVO 3D was a conversation starter everywhere I went with it. But Internet connection problems, bits of missing hardware and software, and a very narrow 3D-viewing angle make this a phone for adventurous early adopters rather than the masses. Read the rest of this entry »

The Samsung Epic 4G ($150 with a two-year contract from Sprint) stands out from its Galaxy S siblings for several, reasons. Unlike any of the others, it has a physical, keyboard and a front-facing camera—and it runs on Sprint’s 4G network. Among the many QWERTY keyboard phones that we have reviewed, the Epic is one of the best. The keys are properly spaced and have a pleasant luckiness to them. If you don’t want to use the physical keyboard, the touchscreen offers even more options: the Touch Wiz keyboard, the Swype keyboard, or the native Android keyboard. The display is quite responsive, and it’s big enough to type on comfortably. Read the rest of this entry »